


Prettier than a troll

by Luflice



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, peter hale has plant babies, this is more of a build up to a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luflice/pseuds/Luflice
Summary: Peter is not lonely as long as he has his plants. If only they wouldn't keep dying at his touch. Stiles might be the solution to more than one of his problems. For the prompt: As a werewolf Peter loves nature and used to have lots of plants in his rooms/apartment. But since he's back from the dead everything he touches dies. When he notices Stiles' green thumb he tricks/blackmails/charms him into caring for the plants at his apartment several times a week.





	1. Absolutely Green

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lostwithoutmyanchor (mysourwolf)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysourwolf/gifts).



> This is for Lost, who came up with this wonderful idea. 
> 
> Lots of thanks to everyone who helped me out. 
> 
> Also- the first who gets the reference can prompt me and gets a hug.

 

Peters apartment is pretty much what you would expect of him. Clean cuts, straight lines, a lot of books. His couch is leather - because it absorbs the least foreign smells - his kitchen is designer and his bed probably cost more than the beloved Sheriff makes in a month.

 

He could afford a house easily, but what would he do with a house? In the end it would just remind him of all the things he didn’t have: A pack, a family, someone to share his life with. Peter will never admit to needing those, he had been self reliant almost all his life, but he knew that late at night an empty house would haunt him.

 

While the large windows and the skylight in his living room might be counted as something fitting the rest of the style of his apartment, there is something that Peter needs and wants, that people might not expect of him.

 

There are plants _everywhere_. There’s herbs in the kitchen, flowers in the living room, calming smelling plants all over his bathroom and bedroom. More flowers in the hallway, his study full of exotic plants and a real bonsai. Miniature  gardening tools and all.

 

While Peter is more than _just_  a werewolf, he is still one after all. And he had always been close to nature, often getting lost in the woods as a cub, although if anyone asked, he was _exploring_. Now that he wakes up with the smell of ash in his nose, the taste of foulness and congealed blood in his mouth, he needs that little bit of peace and calm even more.

 

Which all wouldn't be a problem if he hadn’t turned himself into a zombiewolf, as his favorite menace liked to call him. The plants - magical or not - keep dying at his touch. It is not something the pack ever noticed luckily, as dried plants and herbs are no problem being already dead, but it makes his life rather miserable. Watering works fine, but pruning or even just touching for touching sake makes his beloved flora turn dry and black.

 

Sometimes he brushes against one of them accidentally and when he watches them crumble he wants to do nothing but cry.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end there is one thing everybody knows without having ever been to Peter’s apartment. _It’s off limits_. Nobody enters it, and rarely anyone ever goes there. If you need Peter, you call him and if he doesn’t answer than you probably wont get him to help by coming over. Realistically you are more likely to get your throat torn out for it.

 

This fact might be the reason that Stiles almost faints when Peter offers to let him come over. So maybe it isn’t really just so he can impress Stiles with his interior decorating skills, but a much more selfish reason. There is something going on in the forest, something that kills it. They need all the research power they have, and Peter knows his books will be useful. Tomes really, and these he doesn’t let out of his sight. Ever.

 

So because of that, and because Peter cares for this forest as much as he does for his remaining family members - who he likes to pretend he doesn’t care about at all, but family is family - Stiles rings his doorbell an obnoxiously five times on a Friday afternoon.

 

Peter debates asking Lydia instead for all about of five seconds, as the thought of the banshee even knowing where he lives gives him the bad kind of shivers. If Peter Hale was ever cautious of someone in this pack, it was Lydia Martin. Not because the rest isn’t a threat, but because he has been in her head, and that coupled with the still obvious animosity towards him from her side makes him rather unwilling to ever let her into his home.

 

Stiles enters and promptly stumbles over nothing. Peter hopes this doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the evening.

 

* * *

 

 

While Stiles does poke his nose into every room but the bedroom, he doesn’t make as much of a Ruckus as expected. Honestly, he is strangely respectful of Peters things, although of course the teasing and sarcasm flow out of him without pause. Peter takes it with grace for the first five minutes, having expected nothing else, but then promptly grabs the boy by the collar of his shirt and drags him over to the desk in the living room where books are already stacked up high.

 

Not for the first time he wishes he can do this alone, but Peter is not blind or stupid. He knows that Stiles brain makes connections no one else does in the same time. That for all that he jumps from topic to topic in a matter of seconds during a conversation, just that annoying habit is what makes him an amazing researcher. Stiles thinks about everything at the same time, and if anybody can find a solution in these tomes it might just be the two of them.

 

This is not their first rodeo after all, just their first in his apartment. Peter will admit - never out loud of course - that he isn’t half as uncomfortable with the young mans presence in his apartment as he pretends to be.

* * *

 

 

The whiteboard Stiles has been writing and pinning notes on for most of the afternoon is filled to three quarters when the human finally starts getting restless. It was nothing Peter hadn’t expected and he blames the availability of so much new research material for the long time it took for Stiles to start moving around again.

 

Peter doesn’t mind, because he is certain that the other respects him enough to not invade his privacy too much. While he wouldnt call him a friend in the traditional sense, the both of them had an understanding of each other that was unique to all other pack members. They both had gone through traumatic events and come out rougher in the end, more sharp tongued, hiding behind their own words to not show anyone what despair and darkness lies beneath. They respect the others boundaries simply because no one else seems to do it. Maybe the werewolf had thought Stiles nothing but a fumbling, loud mouthed and clumsy idiot in the beginning, but over time he had learned that him and the spark were not so different after all.

 

Even his wolf didn’t mind the other too much, although Stiles was actively smearing his scent all over his apartment that moment. Stiles was pack in a way that the others weren’t maybe, not really.

 

Peter shakes his head at himself. Or maybe all those hours where they had been left behind to do research or just wait for the outcome of the next fight had just gotten him too used to the annoying brat.

 

* * *

 

“Oops. “  A gasp, the sound of socked feet sliding back over his hardwood floor and Peter already regrets treating the human like the adult he is and letting him move around unsupervised.

 

Slowly he steps out of the kitchen, nice as he is he had been about to get them something to drink, and moves over to where Stiles is staring at his [_Kalanchoe arborescens_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kalanchoe_arborescens_12.jpg) who had just bloomed out of season.

 

“I - uh - “ The young man stumbles over his words as he looks back and forth between Peter and the plant. “That has been happening recently, don’t ask me why. Because I asked Deaton and all he did was giving me this _look_. “ And Peter has to stifle a chuckle for a moment, because when Stiles tries to mimic the vets cryptic expression he does look rather constipated.

 

“It is not unheard of for a spark connected to a pack to have a connection to nature also.” The werewolf replies slowly, remembering a  similar passage from one of the books he had read a few years ago. When he had figured out what exactly Stiles is, he had wanted to know what he _could be._  This ability had been listed among at least fifty other possible outcomes, so he had never quite anticipated something like this.

 

Peter thinks he might have found the solution to his (not so) little problem.

 

* * *

 

 

 

They strike a deal. Peter offers a place to do research with all his materials free to Stiles’ perusal, and in return the spark takes care of his plants once a week. Peter never tells him about the exact reason he cant do it himself, simply points out the humans newly acquired skill set and snarks something about _target practice and that Stiles has to buy him two new ones for everyone he kills._ Stiles seems to get it though, because he just smiles and nods, making Peter feel almost uncomfortable in that moment with his easy acceptance.

 

From then on it is almost too easy. Stiles is strangely courteous about it, as if he actually respects Peters privacy, when he never asks for a key, or tries to steal his to make a copy. He even texts before he comes over.

The werewolf tries not to get used to it.

Peter expects it to end after the summer is over, Stiles will be busy after all. The boy had decided to do College close by, at least the first two years. He still lives at home, and works at the local library three times a week. Stiles says he is staying because he has to watch his father’s eating habits, but Peter can hear the blip in his heartbeat every time he does.

 

He doesn’t call him out on it.

 

 

It’s been three weeks since he had last seen Stiles when there’s a knock on the door one late night. Peter opens the door to a shaken looking Stiles who pretty much storms past him. The werewolf doesn’t say anything, just follows the other into the living room and raises an eyebrow at him. “Your plants have been missing me, I could hear them cry all the way to my house.” Stiles says with his back to him, and Peter doesn’t point out that lie either.

 

He lets him do as he wants, because his plants could use some care, and if the man decided to hide here, he probably has his reasons.

 

When Stiles leaves again the staccato of his heartbeat had returned to its usual pace, and Peters plants are as happy as they could be.

 

The fact that Peter feels more settled without ever having noticed being _unsettled_  in any way has nothing to do with the others presence of course and is all about his beloved plants being better.

 

* * *

 

 

Suddenly Stiles seems to be there all the time. With his homework strewn all over Peter’s living room desk, his favorite snacks in the cabinet that Peter was pretty sure only held rarely used tea before, and his smell hanging everywhere to the point that Peter was more uncomfortable when it wasn’t there.

 

They don’t talk about it, but why should they if no one is unhappy with the arrangement? Maybe Peter should push him away more, should make him spend more time with people his age, _College people_ , but he had always been rather selfish and wasn’t about to stop now.

 

His wolf agreed whole heartedly, because Stiles was pack, and the wolf actually liked this one because he was smart and cunning and smelled great. The fact that his inner creature liked people based on their scents was just one of the many reasons he didn’t often let it make the  decisions in their life.

 

* * *

 

 

The plants seem to slowly gain a life of their own the longer and more frequent Stiles stays. At first Peter barely notices it, but when his _Cissus discolour_ starts growing towards the other and actually moving his leaves slightly whenever Stiles comes and goes Peter knows something is up.

 

All his plants are more vibrant when Stiles is around, seemingly vibrating in their pots and Peter feels like he is doing the same. Although he likes his solitude quite fine, there is just something about Stiles’ presence. He thought an overdose of it would overwhelm him over time, but with the other busy doing homework most of the time, it was actually bearable.

 

Slowly those hours of silent companionship would turn into sarcastic commentary on whatever they were reading, move on into common interests and suddenly Peter found himself standing in the grocery store, considering getting pop tarts - which he hates as he can taste that there is not one natural ingredient in them, something the human vehemently argued against because _sugar, duh_  - when he sees Stiles’ seasonal favorite flavor is in stock.

 

A tiny voice in his head whispers that that must mean he is in love.

 

He growls and leaves the store, two brightly colored packages of cardboard covered in sugar in his cart.  

 

* * *

 

 

Peter finds himself watching Stiles. Sometimes for hours. Suddenly no book is as riveting as all those little ticks he can learn. The way you can read Stiles’ opinion on the text just by watching his mouth. Its corners will tick up or down, moving along the words when they are either really important or really hard to understand. A surprising discovery will round those soft lips into an ‘o’-shape as a small gasp leaves them.

 

The narrowing of his eyes tells Peter when it is time to remind Stiles’ of his reading glasses again, something the human hates using, he guesses it is because he hates any kind of weakness in himself. It is why the werewolf never mocks him about them.

 

Stiles’ face can form a thousand expressions while he talks to Peter, but when he speaks to the plants there is only the one of light concentration and a gentleness that Peter has never seen in any other situation.

 

If anyone ever asks him why he fell in love with Stiles, he will show them this.

 

They will understand.

  
  
  



	2. Welcome to my World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Stiles POV, as people have requested

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came to deliver what you all wanted. 
> 
> Also, I have to thank my beloved Roo for letting me ramble at her and cleaning up my writing when I write although Im too tired to form proper sentences. 
> 
> There might be a third one in the future, with glimpses of them traveling and being all too cute together.

 

When Stiles was thirteen, he took a map and put a pin on every University or College in America that was in a cool city where he could have”The full College Experience”; Just like the College life he had seen in a movie he had been watching with Scott the weekend before. They would have a life just like that, they would be cool and would go to all the parties and never even miss their parents because of all the amazing things they would do; And then he would marry Lydia and live his own happily ever after. 

 

When Stiles was sixteen - almost seventeen - he had a few more friends than planned, so he had to change his own plans and made a new map with all the Colleges they could go to together. They would finally be free of this town and its nightmares, they would live normal and fun lives, and then he’d marry someone nice and they would have their own very happily after, him and all his friends. 

 

When Stiles was eighteen his friends were either dead or gone. All the maps were torn down and thrown away, and sometimes he wasn’t even sure what a happily ever after was anymore. 

  
  


* * *

 

 

Stiles used to hate Beacon Hills. It had taken his mother from him, and then Heather, and then soon after his own sanity and friends. All it had given him was pain and grief;  a glimpse into a world that made him feel powerless and small. 

 

All he had wanted was to  _ leave leave leave _ ,  to get away as far as possible and only look back when he was grown and had put enough emotional distance between him and this hellhole. 

 

But over time everything changed. The pack was - the pack was a bunch of teenagers barely able to deal with their own problems and the closer they got to graduation the more they drifted apart. There was no one really to blame, because everyone kind of tried, and there were still pack meetings and they still talked in the hallways, they still protected the city... but it wasn’t the same. 

 

They didn’t have any plans together anymore, they weren’t a real pack. Not like he had always dreamt of. 

 

And when everyone looked at him at the last meeting before summer, silent faces asking him what he would do with his life now, he had no answer. Life after graduation had seemed like a far away dream in the last months, so far that he had no energy left to try and reach for it. 

 

In that moment he was suddenly terrified. Terrified of leaving Beacon Hills, of leaving the only familiar place he had, of going out into the unknown where he wouldn't just be without pack but also without any kind of knowledge about his surroundings, without Deaton and without his father and without - 

 

He fled Lydia’s house before a full panic attack could set in. 

 

The next day he did two things. He first called Deaton. And then he printed the forms for the local College. 

* * *

 

It is not like there suddenly isn’t a pack anymore. There are the younger ones now.Scott is still mostly there, training to be a vet with Deaton. There’s also Malia, who comes back now and then, and the siblings they’ve taken in last year. Peter is still skirting the edges of pack, as close to an omega as one can be while still part of a pack. The other two Hale’s return now and then. So in general? Beacon Hills is never unprotected. 

 

Which is one of the reasons why leaving is so hard, because at least here he is never alone with the monster of the week. Who knows what lurks in the dark alleys of New York, or what prowls Santa Monica’s beaches late at night.  _ He doesn’t _ , which is another reason not to leave. 

 

He has to learn. He has to become better, before he leaves the nest so to speak.

 

* * *

 

 

This is how he spends his days now: He goes to classes, he works at the library, he has dinners or lunches with his father, he has study sessions with Deaton and he self studies what the druid won’t teach him. 

It’s an easy routine, one that he gets used to quickly, no new (probably not that awesome anyway) ‘College friendships’ needed. That’s another thing really, he just doesn’t - doesn’t connect right anymore. 

 

It used to be so easy, the babbling and pushing and snarking, but he looks at them and can’t open his mouth. All the stories he could tell from his senior year are hard to believe  believe, and everything  _ they _ talk about seems so juvenile to him. Stiles knows that the other members of the pack have managed it somehow, to keep that bit of lightness, but whenever he spends more than five minutes with his new peers he just feels old and tired. 

  
  


Maybe that is why he jumps at the chance to visit Peter’s apartment when he is allowed to, because at least that’s better than spending more time in an empty house, right? There’s just too much time and space to think and mope at home by himself.. 

 

Also - he has always been curious about how the werewolf lives. Although he feels closer to Peter these days than any other pack member, he has never really been there; always trying to respect the others privacy at least that far. Stiles wouldn’t call them friends really, just two people that understood each other better than either of them wanted to admit. 

 

So when he entered the apartment it was with unusual caution... and an overwhelming sense of curiosity. He just can’t stop himself really, all morose thoughts forgotten as he explores the new terrain. 

 

From there everything moves terrifyingly quick. But it’s also unexpected when instead of scolding him for his exploring, Peter accepts it easily, just like his powers. 

 

He remembers the look on Scott’s face as the werewolf first saw his little - and mostly uncontrolled - trick with the plants and he could see that his friend hadn’t been happy. That for Scott, Stiles was still his  _ human _ best friend. The token human really and that that was exactly what Scott wanted him to be. 

 

Mountain ash and some parlor tricks were okay, but real magic? Real powers? Scott had almost looked afraid. 

 

They never brought it up again. 

 

But Peter? Peter lights up in the face of his sudden powers, bargaining with him to be able to benefit from them. 

 

Many people would be put off by the way that Peter treats it like a burden; like he is only offering it for Stiles benefit really, very  _  very  _  reluctantly. But Stiles does just the same, bartering for minutes over how much of his  _ precious _ power he wants to spend on Peter’s little plant babies. 

 

It’s obvious to him that these plants are important for Peter, just like Peter is probably quite aware that Stiles needs the practice and the space to learn away from Deaton. 

 

These plants. They really are a surprise. The rest of the apartment is kind of exactly what he had expected, clean and with great style. There are hidden comforts everywhere because sometimes Peter still aches and Stiles knows that; just like he knows that Peter hates small rooms and the dark, it’s something they both share. 

 

The plants - make sense finally when he sees the way Peter looks at the small, red blossom he created. Suddenly so much makes sense. 

 

For just a brief moment he wonders if anyone will ever look at him like that. 

 

* * *

 

It is scary how fast Peter’s place becomes his favorite to be at. It is only once a week, but sometimes he counts the hours from one to another, after the worst nightmares even the minutes. 

 

Stiles can’t put into words what it is really that makes him so eager to return. Maybe it is simply not being alone without having to make small talk with strangers, or forcing himself on his father at the station. Maybe it is finally feeling useful, finally having something he can do with his  _ spark  _  that always seemed like something Deaton just said to him so he would feel less inadequate compared to Banshees, Werewolves and Kitsunes. 

 

Perhaps it’s the atmosphere, perhaps the reading materials, perhaps the silent understanding between him and - or it is just all of that and he should stop thinking, because he lost track of what he is doing and now the climbing plant in the hallway has wrapped an arm half around his wrist already. 

 

“Oops..” He mumbles, pointedly ignoring Peter’s amused snort. 

 

* * *

 

  
  


Normal life feels like a shirt that has been washed too hot. He tries, god does he try, but it never really fits. Stiles does it all, the team sports, the study groups, the late pizza binges, the parties. For a few weeks he can pretend he is just another kid with no clue where his life goes but all the time in the world. It doesn’t stop the nightmares, or the inherent loneliness, but when everyone around him keeps talking loud enough to drown out his own thoughts, he can pretend. 

 

That is - until it all breaks apart. Until the night when he starts talking in his sleep and someone listens. He had just fallen asleep after a movie marathon, having been up all night the day before, because his nightmares left him unable to turn the light off. 

 

Just one word is enough to make it all fall.  _ Allison _ . 

 

They think it’s just an old crush, mocking and teasing and they won’t stop. He asks them to and for a few hours he thinks he is safe, but at that night's party they are drunk and pushing and yelling her name at him, asking if she is his crush or his ex girlfriend, what he did to make her leave and all he can see is blood on his hands and all he can hear is Scott’s scream and - 

  
  


He doesn’t even know how he got to Peter's apartment that night, where his jeep is, or his shoes for that matter. All he knows is that Peter will keep him safe, that he knows him and everything he has done and still looks at him the same. He knows that Peter understands like no one ever will, and so when he whispers his sorrows and regrets to the small green plant babies, leaves still so new they are almost see-through , he doesn’t care that the werewolf can hear him. 

 

* * *

 

 

From then on it becomes a routine. Whenever classes let out early, whenever the house is empty, Stiles is at Peter’s apartment.  They both like to pretend it is just for the plants, but when silence turns into companionship and comfort Stiles thinks he might just have found the pack he always wanted. 

 

Stiff greetings turn into casual touches, into cooking together and lecturing each other and Stiles is happier than he has been in a while. Peter’s apartment has become the safe space he so desperately needed and he doesn’t know how to put it into words. 

 

So he does what he does best; He takes care of Peters plants. He touches and hums to them, sharing with each little seedling the happiness that the werewolf causes in him.

* * *

 

  
  


And when Peter brings him his favorite snacks, he starts bringing his own little pots in exchange, coaxing out rare magical plant babies right in front of him.  He had spent hours searching the internet and obscure shops for the right seeds, but by the look on Peter’s face he thinks it was worth the trouble. 

Because when Peter looks at these plants, Stiles can see a part of him that was long buried beneath charred remains of a wonderful family life, suffocated by helplessness and trauma that mutated into a greed for power, for never being helpless again. It's in the softening of the others whole composure, the small quirk of chapped lips, a light in his eyes that changes them from their usual cold and cruel look. In that moment he wants to protect that expression, to never let it be seen by anyone able to destroy it. 

If anyone ever asks him why he fell in love with Peter, he will show them this. 

They will understand. 

 

* * *

 

When Stiles turns nineteen the walls of his room are empty, but at the other end of town there is an apartment full of plants and books; and on a wall in the living room there is a map with all the places he will visit one day, his werewolf at his side. 


End file.
